Members in the Media

As quoted in other publications...

"It's important to stay on top of the industry. . . because if you bet wrong, you can be out of business in a very short time." — George Whitesides, Harvard, on why nanotechnology will be important to industry, The Futurist, March 1, 2002

"What the space station allows us to do is open a whole new realm of tests that are either inaccessible or would be very difficult to conduct down on Earth." — Robert Bluhm, Colby College, UPI Science News, March 3, 2002

"We've chosen what on the face of it ought to be the world's worst laser medium - a reflective powder that's difficult to energize - and we've managed to get continuous ultraviolet laser activity for the first time." — Stephen Rand, University of Michigan, UPI Science News, March 3, 2002

"There's no doubt in my mind that superpositions are real. This is one of the essential properties of matter." — Anton Zeilinger, University of Vienna, on quantum weirdness, New Scientist, March 9, 2002

"I didn't realize when I woke up this morning this was my day." — Eric Cornell, NIST Boulder, when the state of Colorado named a day after him and fellow Nobelist Carl Wieman, Denver Post, March 7, 2002

"I would have never guessed that 75 years after Scopes I would still have to be doing this. Instead of actually having to ask about improving science education, we have to head off things that would make it worse." — Lawrence Krauss, Case Western Reserve University, on his testimony against the adoption of 'intelligent design' as part of the science curriculum in Ohio, Newsday (NY), March 11, 2002

"The time left for me on earth is limited. And the creation question is so formidable that I can hardly hope to answer it in the time left to me. But each Tuesday and Thursday I will put down the best response that I can, imagining that I am under torture." — John Archibald Wheeler, on trying to unravel the mysteries of nature at age 90, New York Times, March 12, 2002

"It's one of the ways I simplify my life. I don't want to be plugged in all the time. I don't use a cell phone either. I think that having private space where a person can hear his own thoughts and have silences and time for contemplation is extremely important. The modern world in which we're plugged in all the time makes it harder and harder to have those private spaces. Refusing to use e-mail is just one small way in which I've attempted to create more private space for myself." — Alan Lightman, MIT, on why he doesn't use e-mail, The Daily Cardinal (U. of Wisconsin), March 12, 2002

"Even if you don't buy anything I said about the impact and potential for discovery, and the fact we may come up with something that can transform the way we live, even if you say that is a load of hokum, I think you should be extremely excited about this." — Howard Burton, Waterloo, Ontario, on the founding of the Perimeter Institute, Kitchener- Waterloo Record, March 14, 2002

"The students are smart. They're following the money." — Vern Ehlers (R-MI), on why degrees in the life sciences have doubled while those in engineering have declined, Washington Internet Daily, March 14, 2002

"If the pitcher's mound was level with home plate, it would be harder for the pitcher to throw consistent strikes. Players intuitively know how to take into account gravity." — Alan Nathan, University of Illinois, Washington Times, March 14, 2002

"The U.S. has conventional military forces that dwarf those of all possible adversaries combined. If the U.S. plans to resort to nuclear weapons to fight far weaker opponents, what does that tell those who do not yet have nuclear weapons?" — Kurt Gottfried, Cornell University, on plans by the Bush Administration to expand the role of nuclear weapons, US Newswire, March 13, 2002

"If you tell me there's a warhead in New York, it's just hopeless. You just hope you never get to the point where you have to track down one of these in a city." — Steven Fetter, University of Maryland, on the difficulty of detecting nuclear weapons, New York Times, March 18, 2002

"For gravity there's only attraction, so there's no way of constructing a Faraday cage for gravity." — Raymond Chiao, Berkeley, on his plans to make a table-top gravity-wave detector, Dallas Morning News, March 25, 2002

"It's like trying to hear the difference between a violin and a clarinet playing a middle C. Even though they are playing the same note, you can tell them apart by their timber and resonance." — Gary Hinshaw, NASA, on how the MAP satellite will provide data about the early universe, Discovery News, March 22, 2002

"Sometimes it is better for another set of eyes to be reading the textbooks - those who are not using the books every day - in order to check for accuracy." — Lee Riedinger, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, on scientists helping to proofread textbooks, Memphis Commercial Appeal, March 25, 2002

"I do doubt the existence of black holes. However, astronomers are sold on black holes, and talking to them I feel like Don Quixote fighting windmills." — Martinus Veltman, University of Utrecht, San Francisco Chronicle, March 25, 2002